Berrylicious: South Berwick Strawberry Festival praised for its sense of community

Sunday

Jun 27, 2010 at 3:15 AM

By Kyle Stuckerkstucker@fosters.com

SOUTH BERWICK, Maine — Annika Davidson was all smiles Saturday.

With one hand firmly wrapped around a spoon and the other completely submerged in the bowl in front of her, the 1-year-old thoroughly enjoyed her first strawberry shortcake, even if more of it found its way onto her clothes than into her mouth.

"She's in the zone," said Cassandra Davidson, Annika's mother. "The one thing I can always count on is she'll eat strawberries. They're her favorite."

Saturday marked the first time the mother-daughter tandem attended the town's annual Strawberry Festival together. Cassandra Davidson went to the festival last year with friends, although she said the chance to take her young daughter along made this year sweeter than any of the thousands of plump, red berries waiting to be tasted.

"It's just a sense of community at the festival, and now that I have a baby I really notice these things," said the Kittery resident. "Now I notice all these families. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. It's really wonderful. This is definitely going to be a tradition every year."

Davidson was one of an estimated 20,000 individuals who turned out for this year's Strawberry Festival. Saturday was the 35th installment of the gala, which is held each year at Central School in downtown South Berwick as a way to bring the community together and raise money for local nonprofit groups, said festival publicity coordinator Khayyam Mohammed.

Mohammed said organizers tweaked the flow of the festival this year to cut down on wait times for strawberry shortcake and strawberry-topped cheesecake, two of the biggest draws for the festival.

Volunteers began serving the treats at 9 a.m., an hour earlier than previous years, and eager eaters were funneled through two different lines.

"Before there was just one line, and everything used to bottleneck as they chose," he said. "We tried to listen to complaints from previous years to make the festival better. Over previous years (this year has) been a lot better."

Volunteers hulled 5,000 pounds of berries the day before in preparation for the event. Organizers decided to order that many berries, a 10 percent increase from last year, because they ran out around 2 or 2:30 p.m. in 2009, said Mohammed.

The festival staff was able to the harvest sweet benefits of that decision, as more than 5,000 servings were sold and the strawberries, biscuits and cheesecake lasted until 3:45 p.m. — 15 minutes before the end of the festival.

Some attendees were split enough on the great Strawberry Festival dilemma of "strawberry shortcake versus strawberry cheesecake" that they ordered both desserts, while others said they headed straight for the shortcake because the dish is what the festival "is all about," said Martin Lamberts.

"Strawberry shortcake is tradition," said Lamberts, 19, of South Berwick.

"This is the best strawberry shortcake," said Rebecca Farrell, 36, of South Berwick. "You can get cheesecake really anywhere."

The event also featured a variety of artisans, vendors, live entertainment and games as well.

Mike Cook of Clovis Moon Craftworks, a jewelry company he runs with his wife Cyndi, said the day was "really busy." He said he and his wife always make the trip from Warner, N.H., because of the constant turnout from year to year and because of the festival's inviting atmosphere.

"I can't say enough good things about it," he said. "This is the top one-day fair that we go to. We see more people here in one day than we do at three-day-weekend events."

Mohammed said it was too early to tell Saturday afternoon how much money was raised at the festival, although he said it easily exceeded the $12,000 put back into the community last year in the form of grants and scholarships. He said he expected the total to be near $20,000, and possibly higher.

He said this year's festival "was a great day," although the committee's mission is to make each year better than the next.

He said the next project likely will be making the festival "more green."

The utensils, bowls and plates this year were biodegradable, although Mohammed said he hopes next year there will be recycling bins set up across the festival grounds to take the green effort a step further.

"The recycling thing is an issue as we try to be more green as a festival," he said. "We can only do one step at a time."

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